Trump’s America

The Digital Alarmist

Come November 2024, there is a real possibility that a certain racist, misogynistic, and Muslim-hating billionaire will become US President and impose authoritarian rule on the country. Is America ready for this? If history is any guide, the answer is, yes. Plutocracy, misogyny and bigotry have always been part of America’s DNA.

Penned in 1835 by French philosopher-statesman Alexis de Tocqueville, the two-volume book titled Democracy in America has been hailed as “at once the best book ever written on democracy and the best book ever written on America.” Drawing upon his 9-month travel experiences in America in 1831 and 1832, Tocqueville opined that democracy in America was more a ‘way of life’ reliant upon certain philosophic underpinnings rather than simply a form of representative government. Tocqueville’s book was about a largely Anglo-Saxon America and was written at a time when slavery was widespread, women and blacks could not vote, there were few immigrants (mostly from Northern Europe), and Christianity was the only religion.

Sixty years later, French novelist and critic Paul Bourget, in his travelogue, Outre-Mer, Impressions of America, presented a more nuanced but still Eurocentric view of America. Bourget’s America was a post-Civil War, post-slavery one where some blacks could vote but women still couldn’t, and where the wealthy, living in gilded mansions, doled out jobs and poverty in equal measure to the large immigrant populations from the non-Anglo-Saxon countries of Europe.

For Bourget, American democracy revolved around rendering unto Caesar what was Caesar’s, to improve the rich man as a rich man, the noble as a noble, and the workingman as a workingman. In Bourget’s words, “Invincible hope brought them here, to this hole, for which they pay eight dollars a month, the price of a year’s rent in their own country!”

To gain an understanding of the current state of democracy in America, here are a few facts to consider.

The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), first introduced in 1971 to enshrine women’s rights into the US Constitution, is yet to be ratified by three-fourths of the 50 US states. A government ‘of the people, by the people and for the people’ rings hollow when women, who constitute more than half of America’s population, are denied equal rights under the law. How then is the US any different from the misogynistic and autocratic oil-rich countries in the Middle East?

There is no centralised body in the US to ensure fair election practices across the country. Since elections are controlled by 50 Secretaries of State, many of whom are appointed by partisan state Governors, it is questionable if the election process is a truly democratic one since the Secretaries have the power to disqualify voters on the flimsiest of pretexts and have their decisions upheld by partisan judges, should a legal challenge be mounted. Also, since state legislatures have the power to redraw electoral maps, this ‘gerrymandering’ can dilute the power of voting blocs. Right-wing white politicians use a variety of legal artifices to make it extraordinarily difficult for minority groups such as Blacks and Hispanics to vote.

State labour laws prohibit the employment of children under a certain age, usually 16. However, US companies do not follow these laws when they outsource the manufacturing of clothing and footwear to their contractors in Bangladesh and Southeast Asia who have no qualms about employing underage children to produce these items for the malls and boutiques across America.

Quite recently, some US states such as right-wing Republican-leaning Iowa and Democrat-leaning Minnesota and New Jersey have legalised the employment of children within their own borders. These children typically work in fast-food franchises such as McDonald’s and Subway, or in the agricultural sector; also, most of these children are from immigrant communities. The spirit of democracy stops at the border in some situations but not others, especially when it comes to maintaining a God-given right to a consumptive high standard of living.

One of the foundations of a true democracy is respect for labour. However, US corporations, IT companies in particular, try to prevent the formation of unions at their workplaces by invoking the formidable powers of the State. It is unacceptable in a democracy for companies to label most of their workers as contractors, not employees, if only to avoid paying employee benefits such as healthcare or pensions.

A free press is essential to holding a democratic government accountable for its actions and inactions. How can the US press be really free when a handful of companies control all that is printed, shown on TV, heard on the airwaves, or disseminated via the internet?

A yearning for the ‘good old days’ is ever present. Is America now or has it ever been a true democracy? You decide.